In the last episode, we briefly introduced "climate change doomers" and some of their misleading claims. In this episode, I talk about despair, and why we cannot give in to it.

We're going there. In this episode, I discuss why civilization is not going to imminently collapse due to climate change, explain why doomism is a new form of denialism, and debunk some of its most misleading claims.

N/B: Owing to a ridiculously hectic schedule until the end of the year, episodes will continue to be released on a fortnightly basis until further notice - thanks for understanding. 

We hear an awful lot about carbon capture, utilisation, and storage as a technology that could help to mitigate climate change. In this episode, we review the science, the policy, existing CCS plants, and the potential for the captured carbon to be utilised. Will CCS ever materialise?

I'm excited today to say that we have a guest on the show - Gemma Milne, who has written a book, Smoke and Mirrors, about how technological hype distorts the future. I really enjoyed the book, which deals with nine areas of considerable hype in technology, and not only takes you through some of the fascinating near-term applications for these technologies but also grounds them in reality. It was a fascinating conversation that I'm glad to be able to present you with. 

You can find more of her work on Twitter @gemmamilne or on her website at www.gemmamilne.co.uk and you can listen to the newly relaunched Science:Disrupt podcast, which has a recent episode about science communication in the age of coronavirus, which is obviously extremely topical.

As for us, you can find the show at physicspodcast.com where you'll find all of our past episodes and a contact form. You can send any questions, comments, concerns, episode ideas, people you'd like me to interview that way - it always makes my day to get communication from you guys so do send it over. You can follow us on the web @physicspod or the Facebook page, Physical Attraction. There's also a Patreon which I really need to use more which you can donate to, and a paypal link for one-off donations if you want to support what I do; we are and remain totally independent and solo, a passion project for me, and anything you can do to support us from telling your friends to listen to the show, to reviewing the show on various platforms, to sending us advice or encouragement, is all greatly appreciated. We have some more interviews in the pipeline for you that will be out soon. Our theme music is by melodysheep and used with kind permission. Until next time, then, take care.

For the masochists who apparently can't get enough content about the coronavirus:

=> An interview with my friend who participated in the vaccine trials
=> Some discussion of the risk factors that are associated with deaths from COVID-19
=> Updated discussion of "herd immunity" thresholds and the link between R0 and immunity fractions
=> Reports on serological testing that has taken place so far. 

N/B: This series of episodes was written before the coronavirus pandemic. I've decided the best thing to do is to present them as was and maybe have another episode reflecting on what the pandemic means for their conclusions later on.

======================================

We've outlined a nexus between catastrophic risks, inequality, and accelerating developments in technology in the future.

Is there a way out of the mire?

Part IV in a series on Technology, Inequality, and global catastrophic risks.

Given that we are in the midst of a series on technology, inequality, and global catastrophic risks inspired by Walter Scheidel's book on these subjects, and he's just written an op-ed on the topic, I thought I'd release the op-ed as a bonus. 

In this, the last of our short series of coronavirus updates, I will be telling you everything I've found out about the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine - when we can expect it to be ready, the testing that needs to be undergone, and some of the techniques that might be used.

With thanks to Derek Lowe of Science Magazine whose blog post on this I used as a main source for many of the details.

In the latest coronavirus episode, we discuss research that has been done into the viable exit strategies from lockdown, including the idea of a contact-tracing app, and discuss some early estimates as to how effective this might be and what would be required to make it a success.

Some further updates in the latest therapy session/ramble:

- Discussion of the various models that have been used to try to predict the impact of the coronavirus pandemic

- Discussion of scientific uncertainty (and the importance of doing science anyway)

- Concerns surrounding the politicisation of science...

- And some discussion of drug trials for antiviral treatments for coronavirus.

The first of a few quick episodes where I continue going into coronavirus therapy by ranting on to you about all of the things I've learned about the current epidemic... with references to scientific papers so you can read them and find out how wrong I was.

We discuss:

• Estimates for the rate of disease progression in different countries
• Results from the early serology (antibody) tests of the virus (sadly still thin on the ground)
• Why Bayes' theorem means that the accuracy of antibody tests is so important
  
  

N/B: This series of episodes was written before the coronavirus pandemic. I've decided the best thing to do is to present them as was and maybe have another episode reflecting on what the pandemic means for their conclusions later on.

======================================

Increasing dependence on algorithms and other, more speculative developments in technology can serve to accelerate and exacerbate inequalities within society, potentially lining them up to be far more susceptible to catastrophic risks.

N/B: This series of episodes was written before the coronavirus pandemic. I've decided the best thing to do is to present them as was and maybe have another episode reflecting on what the pandemic means for their conclusions later on.

======================================

Inequality tends to increase unless there's a catastrophe. Does technology help us - either in addressing catastrophes, or in reducing inequalities?

In this episode, we get into some of the specific technologies that might be called upon to deliver negative emissions at scale. Specifically, we're looking at the advantages, disadvantages, and concerns surrounding BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage.)

N/B: This series of episodes was written before the coronavirus pandemic. I've decided the best thing to do is to present them as was and maybe have another episode reflecting on what the pandemic means for their conclusions later on.

======================================================

Walter Schiedel's book The Great Leveller posits that in societies, economic inequality tends to inexorably increase over time until some catastrophe comes along that levels the entire population.

Is this our fate?

In this new episode, we do a deep dive into the Imperial College London paper that models the coronavirus epidemic in the UK and the effectiveness of mitigation and suppression measures, and we speculate wildly and prematurely on what the next 18 months might look like as we do battle with coronavirus globally. Also an update on the expected future of the show at the end.

A quick update on some news surrounding the coronavirus, including why some of the headlines you may have read recently are unlikely to be true, some public service announcements about what you can do to help, and a general urge to read scientific literature and pre-prints with a skeptical eye - especially when they've been digested by headline writers. 

For weeks I've been debating in my mind whether or not to do an episode on the coronavirus pandemic, since it's essentially been all I have been able to think about for the last few weeks as my friends and relatives, long-suffering as they are, will attest. For someone who spent so long thinking about existential risks and catastrophes, both in my day job as a doomy climate scientist and in researching the TEOTWAWKI specials for this show where it all kicked off a few years ago, it's absolutely no fun at all to see them unfold in reality.

This podcast summarises what I understand of what's going on at the moment. I am not an expert and make no claim to expertise, but I try to source my information in the facts. It's not an easy listen, as you might expect given the subject matter. This was mostly something I made as therapy for myself. I'm hoping to resume normal service as soon as I can, preferably with things that are a little more distracting for you to listen to, but I had to get this one off my chest. I hope that you get some value out of it, but if you don't think you will, put yourself first and don't listen.

I care deeply for you all for somehow finding this life-raft in a sea of content that meant a lot to me for several years and I'm hoping to return to more regular content production very soon. Thank you and take care of each other.

Apologies everyone... a quick note to explain why (due to illness and general exhaustion) I am putting the show on hiatus until the New Year.

Watch this show for updates on future releases - we will return.

Thanks for understanding + enjoy the holidays if you've got them!

Hi all - something a little different this week.

I was recently interviewed by Richard Foster-Fletcher, of the Boundless AI podcast, on topics as varied as artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, and self-driving cars.

As a bonus for those that just can't get enough, this is the full, unedited interview, where you can hear just how good I am at responding to questions spontaneously...

On this episode of Physical Attraction, we take a massively tangential dive into wild philosophical speculation.

If I offered you the choice of immortality - but with no possibility of reversing the decision once you made it - would you?

Answers on a postcard to www.physicspodcast.com

A recent review paper in Nature showed some Google-backed academic research, conducted across several institutions, which investigated the claims made by the Cold Fusion community. Agonisingly, it came out a day or two after I'd taped the Cold Fusion episode for our fusion series. But I decided to talk about it anyway.

In this bonus episode, we'll discuss what they found (spoilers: not cold fusion) and describe the experiments in more detail.

In this episode, we discuss Eric Drexler's model of "Comprehensive AI Services" as an alternative route towards artificial general intelligence, and Xiaoice, Microsoft's incredibly popular chatbot software.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

27 episodes, spanning a hundred years of history and many months of this show, some wonderful plasma physics, some truly amazing machines, and a dream that's captivated thousands across the world for decades.

The fusion series is over. And while it's hard to conclude something this monumental, I tried my best.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

In this episode, we discuss whether the promises that some new technology - like negative emissions - will come along and "solve climate change" for us are genuine, or if they have instead shaped climate policy into prevarication and procrastination.

In this double-header, we examine the various startups that are trying to make commercial nuclear fusion a reality. What technologies are they using? Who's backing them? And do any of them have a prayer of beating ITER to the punch?

Comments, questions, concerns? Find the contact form on the website, or contact us on Twitter or Facebook.

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod

In this double-header, we examine the various startups that are trying to make commercial nuclear fusion a reality. What technologies are they using? Who's backing them? And do any of them have a prayer of beating ITER to the punch?

Comments, questions, concerns? Find the contact form on the website, or contact us on Twitter or Facebook.

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod

What Can Four-Year-Olds Do that AI Can't?

==> Children are the greatest learners on the planet. As machine learning comes more and more into focus, and ambitious AI types are aiming to simulate the human brain in its entirety, there is a question to ask: how can our machine-learning algorithms learn from the curiosity and adaptability of children? 

@physicspod
www.physicspodcast.com

Hello and welcome to this episode of Physical Attraction. I’ve been excited about this for a while. Today, on the show, for the first time ever, we have not one but TWO guests, who have co-written an excellent book together. They are both currently researching nuclear fusion, and they have written a book about the future of fusion energy called… well, the Future of Fusion Energy.

Dr Justin Ball is currently studying plasma theory at Lausanne, and Jason Parisi works on turbulent transport in highly magnetized plasmas just a few buildings away from me here at the University of Oxford.

Their book is an excellent guide to the science, history, and future of fusion energy, and of real help in compiling the marathon efforts in the show so far, so I was excited to be able to grab both of them for an interview to talk about fusion. Since this comes after I’ve already been yakking about fusion for ages, the conversation does assume some knowledge of what nuclear fusion is, but should be easy to follow if you’ve listened to some of the episodes in this series already.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction. My guests were Justin Ball and Jason Parisi. If you’d like to find out more, please do get their book – The Future of Fusion Energy – which is a highly entertaining and informative read. They also both have websites in the same format – Justin-ball.com and Jason-Parisi.com – and they can both be found on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.

Remember, comments, questions, concerns, feedback, etc. can all be directed to me on Twitter at physicspod, or via the contact form on our website at www.physicspodcast.com – it’s always so wonderful to hear from listeners, and this is your chance to help me make the show as good as it can be! You can help us out by leaving a review on iTunes, purchasing past bonus episodes from the website, or just telling as many people as possible about the show to help spread the word if you like what we do.

Until next time, then, take care.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Physical Attraction. I’ve been excited about this for a while. Today, on the show, for the first time ever, we have not one but TWO guests, who have co-written an excellent book together. They are both currently researching nuclear fusion, and they have written a book about the future of fusion energy called… well, the Future of Fusion Energy.

Dr Justin Ball is currently studying plasma theory at Lausanne, and Jason Parisi works on turbulent transport in highly magnetized plasmas just a few buildings away from me here at the University of Oxford.

Their book is an excellent guide to the science, history, and future of fusion energy, and of real help in compiling the marathon efforts in the show so far, so I was excited to be able to grab both of them for an interview to talk about fusion. Since this comes after I’ve already been yakking about fusion for ages, the conversation does assume some knowledge of what nuclear fusion is, but should be easy to follow if you’ve listened to some of the episodes in this series already.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction. My guests were Justin Ball and Jason Parisi. If you’d like to find out more, please do get their book – The Future of Fusion Energy – which is a highly entertaining and informative read. They also both have websites in the same format – Justin-ball.com and Jason-Parisi.com – and they can both be found on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.

Remember, comments, questions, concerns, feedback, etc. can all be directed to me on Twitter at physicspod, or via the contact form on our website at www.physicspodcast.com – it’s always so wonderful to hear from listeners, and this is your chance to help me make the show as good as it can be! You can help us out by leaving a review on iTunes, purchasing past bonus episodes from the website, or just telling as many people as possible about the show to help spread the word if you like what we do.

Until next time, then, take care.

In this episode, we examine some of the chaotic politics and causes of delay to the ITER project - and the perils of trying to collaborate across multiple countries on a multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade enterprise.

After all this, is ITER still "The Way"?

www.physicspodcast.com for comments, questions, concerns.

@physicspod

Many would argue that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), currently under construction, is now 'The Way' to achieving power from nuclear fusion. But it faces extraordinary challenges.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

On this week's edition of TT,  we take a brief break from the fusion series to look at two recent news stories about giant tech companies expanding their markets: both into healthcare, and into providing internet via satellites.

www.physicspodcast.com for any comments, questions, concerns

The National Ignition Facility poured the heart and soul of the first few years of their work into achieving ignition - a plasma that would heat itself by thermonuclear reactions by as much as it was heated externally.

Ultimately, it was close, but no cigar.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

The National Ignition Facility is, to date, the largest inertial confinement fusion experiment ever developed - and carried with it a huge amount of hope and hype that breakeven might be reached with this new device.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

Increasing levels of negative emissions are envisioned by models in climate-change scenarios that are compatible with the Paris Agreements. In this episode, we talk about some of the geopolitical implications for trying to deliver this, and the alternative futures that we can envision. Do "thinly-veiled techno-utopias shore up the Paris Agreement?"

Inertial confinement fusion has a secret weapon - after all, it's just a scaled-down hydrogen bomb, which gives us hope that it might not be too difficult to fuse fuel under these conditions. This was supposedly confirmed by underground nuclear tests called Halite and Centurion... but all the details are classified.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

Released as a special treat/taster of what Patreon backers get.

In this episode, we cover one of the biggest scientific scandals in history: the tragic, tawdry tale of Fleischmann, Pons, and "Cold Fusion".

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

A step by step description of an experiment run at JET, with information from the Culham Website (CCFE).

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

We discuss the Joint European Torus - the most successful tokamak fusion reactor to date, and the source of a great deal of our knowledge about the outer limits of performance for magnetic confinement fusion.

www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

This episode, we're looking into one of the most bizarre fusion episodes in its long and storied history. Yes, it's that time a new experimental tokamak fusion reactor was funded almost entirely by pornography millions from the founder of Penthouse Magazine... 

Comments, questions, concerns, feedback, reviews? Get in touch with us: 

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod

At the start of the tokamak revolution, there was a huge proliferation of different designs for tokamaks from universities and establishments around the world - but gradually, as it became clear that making progress would require larger and larger machines, these efforts broadly ended up concentrated in three main devices. 

The Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, the JT-60 in Japan, and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the US. 

www.physicspodcast.com 

Is nuclear fusion really the perfect energy source that it's sold as and cracked up to be? 

Even if we can get it working, will it live up to the considerable hype?

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod

What's stopping us from getting magnetic confinement fusion reactors that work? 

Is it really just... simple engineering problems?

www.physicspodcast.com

The second generation of laser fusion (inertial confinement fusion) devices was built in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s - but, unfortunately, those pesky plasma instabilities wouldn't go away.

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod 

Negative emissions technologies (NETs), also called carbon dioxide removal (CDR), are seen by many as an increasingly essential part of climate change mitigation. Many of the scenarios that the IPCC suggests for meeting the Paris Agreement goals suggest that we will suck billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere by the end of the century - using technology which has barely made it past the pilot project stage. In this episode, I ask: how did we get here?

The invention of the laser in 1960 opened up an entirely new approach to nuclear fusion - dramatically, and drastically compressing individual pellets of fuel with lasers. 

www.physicspodcast.com
@physicspod

In the late 1960s, scientists crossed the Iron Curtain. Their mission was to investigate whether the claims of Russian scientists about their new nuclear fusion device, the tokamak, were really true. Their findings would change fusion research forever. 

www.physicspodcast.com 

Taking a break from our nuclear fusion odyssey this week, I have a very special episode for you today. This week, our guest is Dr Kate Devlin. She’s a senior lecturer in computer science who studies artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction, and she wrote a magnificent book: Turned On, Science, Sex and Robots. Now, the tagline is that the book is about love and sex with robots – and there is a great deal of fascinating stuff in there about that – but it’s also a wonderful history of humanoid robotics, in reality and in fiction, and a great survey of the academic research into human-robot interactions in general. As artificial intelligence and chatbots become more omnipresent, and also take on a bigger role in our culture, whole new fields of psychology and sociology open up. We’ve already talked a little about chatbots in past episodes, and Dr Devlin’s book was one of the best and most entertaining works that I’ve read about artificial intelligence and robots in a long time, so I was super excited to get this interview.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction, and many thanks to our guest, Dr Kate Devlin. You can find her book – Turned On, Science, Sex and Robots – where-ever good books are sold, but I also highly recommend the audiobook… if, like me, you’re getting those monthly Audible credits, it’s wonderfully narrated by the author. You can also find out more about her work at www.drkatedevlin.com , and if you Google around, there are some Ted Talks and things of that variety to keep you entertained.

And now for our housekeeping. A reminder that I’m still planning this 100th episode competition, but the due date is being continually extended – send your answers to the question “What Is Physics?” in text or audio format via the contact form on our website, and you’ll be in with a chance to win books from some of our previous interview guests and a place on the show.

The nuclear fusion series will be resuming shortly, and I can’t wait to share it all with you, but I’m also not averse to puncturing it with a few off-topic breaks now and then as a palate-cleanser. But if you have any comments, questions, or concerns about the show, you can contact us via the contact form at www.physicspodcast.com, and you can find me on Twitter @physicspod. If you want to support the show, we have a Patreon account, at www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction – and I’ve actually just put up some “b-sides”, there, shows that I recorded but didn’t release for one reason or another, that subscribers can now enjoy listening to – alongside all the bonus episodes on Alien Attacks, Free Energy Scams, and failed end-of-the-world-predictions. Of course, if you don’t want to donate, the best thing you can do to support us is always always to tell as many people about the show as you possibly can.

Until next time, then, take care!